Before the installation ends, there's an utility that tries to update the game.
You have the option to cancel the update, or go on with the update (takes one or two minutes).
For some it's this that breaks the game. (no racecars show up, only the pacecar shows as the messenger of bad news... i.e, no way to propper use the game)

In my case, I did let the update continue (and had the mentioned problem).
Following some advice out there, it seems this can be fixed by placing an empty folder called "rFm" in the main game folder, and running the game with admin rights.
I have no idea if it will work for everybody, but it did the trick here for me.